Why You are Too Busy NOT to Pray

Prayer does not come naturally to any of us. In our more honest moments, we all admit it’s a struggle to pray as we’d like. And yet there is no avoiding the fact that Scripture insists God has hard-wired the universe in such a way that He works primarily through prayer. No doubt He could have chosen some other method, but in many ways, He has made Himself subservient to the prayers of His people. He has conditioned a good portion of His blessing upon our willingness to pray.
So why is it that our prayer lives so often fall short of our prayer desires? I would hazard a guess that the number one reason is the busyness of our lives. We are so busy.
Believe it or not, the One who taught us to pray had a life remarkably like our own. Jesus was an incredibly busy man. The Gospels record only fifty-two days of His life, but what a whirlwind of activity is chronicled in those few hundred hours! If you wrote down the events of each day on fifty-two sheets of paper, I doubt if you would have enough room on each page to report even the major incidents that took place.
The busiest day of our Lord is recorded in the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel. This day was crowded with miracles to perform, lessons to teach, people to heal, disputes to settle. It was a day totally dedicated to reaching out to people and ministering to their deep needs. How draining that kind of intensive ministry can be! It’s hard to understand the strain on both mind and body if you’ve never endured a day of full-force, non-stop ministry.
He didn’t just preach several sermons and go home to a nice, filling dinner. One after another, people came to him for healing, for understanding, for a gentle touch. Minute after minute, hour after hour, from the rising of the sun until the pale glow of sunset, Jesus worked. People with problems flocked to Him. A son was ill. A daughter crippled. A neighbor was tormented by a demon. Two friends were arguing over some point of doctrine. And one by one, need after need, Jesus ministered to them all.

SEE ALSO: You Have the Right to Rejoice! Why Aren’t You?
But He still wasn’t done. Mark tells us, “And when evening had come, after the sun had set, they began bringing to Him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed. And the whole city had gathered at the door” (Mark 1:32-33).
The morning after is always the hardest, isn’t it? You’re exhausted. You have nothing left to give. Your bed seems like heaven. That’s the morning that you say, “Well, I guess I’ll just skip it today.”
But not Jesus. The morning after the busiest day of His life was the morning He chose to rise early and pray.
“Oh, but that’s Jesus,” you might say. Following that example seems impossible, no matter how much we might want to. For us, survival is the biggest success story we dare hope for. We are ordinary people, not the Son of God, and we feel “too tired” a lot. We’d like to pray more; we understand that Jesus took time out to pray after the most exhausting day of His life. But that’s Jesus, we think; we’re just ordinary people.

SEE ALSO: Why American Christians Should Pray for Israel
And yet the very thing that keeps us from praying is the very reason why we need to pray. It is the means God has chosen to work through us. It is an essential tool for life and ministry.
I scoured the New Testament some time ago, looking for things God does in ministry that are not prompted by prayer. Do you know what I found?
Nothing.
I don’t mean I had trouble finding an item or two; I mean I found nothing. Everything God accomplishes in the work of ministry, He does through prayer. Consider:

SEE ALSO: 4 Steps to Finding God’s Will for Your Life
I could go on listing the myriad divine activities initiated by prayer, but I suspect you get the point. Everything we do that’s worth doing; everything God wants to do in the church; everything God wants to do in your life; He has subjugated it all to one thing: Prayer. I am reminded of a little paradigm I heard years ago that embodies a crucial truth concerning our prayer lives:

What we do for the Lord is entirely dependent upon what we receive from the Lord, and what we receive from the Lord is entirely dependent upon what we are in the Lord, and what we are in the Lord is entirely dependent upon time we spend alone with the Lord in prayer.

testimonials

To Tom,

I received the dvds in the mail very fast!
My family & I have watched the first few episodes and I would like to tell you how much we're all enjoying them! They're fantastic! I've seen a lot of different Bible Stories for children on dvd but never as well detailed and closely described exact to the Bible as yours. I think your company is doing a fabulous job and we're looking forward to your next episodes.

Just wondering when you will be bringing out the next book (or books?) of the Bible? I've been watching your site for some time now and am curious as to how long it'll be before you produce the whole Bible as intended. I only wonder because I'm intending on purchasing them all for my children if possible ~ because as I said earlier, your dvds are definitely the best ever.

I have gotten the noahs ark dvd last week. I really like it. I have a 15 month son,5 and 7 year old girls. My son can't get enough of it!He loves it. Most of the day he will point at the tape for me to play it. My girls like it to but I believe my son loves it the most. I can't wait to get the whole series. Keep up the good work and may God bless the team.

We love the Animated Kids’ Bible. We have built a Kid’s Worship program around your DVDs and it is working great. The children remember what they have seen and heard, and they ask great questions about the Bible characters and about God. We have paired your series with some Bible games to reinforce what the children have learned.

Several parents have told me that their children can’t wait to get to church and don’t want to be late in case they miss Kid’s Worship.

We are very pleased with the simplicity of the stories so that we can use them with a wide age range of children. It has also been a pleasure to see how the children react to the truth. Sometimes Sunday School materials avoid the hard truth lessons like the destruction of Sodom. We think children need to know the truth that God loves us beyond our comprehension but that He must also have consequences for our disobedience.

We have planned this year’s lessons using the first six DVDs. Will the next series be out soon? We hope so!

Message: Our Children's Ministry has been watching the Animated Kids Bible DVD's once a month as a "treat" for the kids. THEY LOVE THEM! I have been searching and searching for something they will equally love as a lesson. By next month they will finish the last DVD of the series I intend on taking them thru all the Bible Lessons you have developed. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!!

In our 4th-5th grade program we have been using the Animated Kids Bible with really great success. The kids are really captivated by the animated Bible story. We held a class party as a special day and I actually had kids asking me to see the video instead of the games and activities we had planned! The Fact File challenges the minds and then lets them try to work through this new information in the Review and Rewind section. The discussion Questions then help to apply the lesson in our small groups. The program as a whole has been met with really good reviews by parents, teachers, and kids alike.
Mark Christensen
4th-5th Grade Coordinator
First Baptist, Eugene, Oregon